"I could love you, Beudag."
"Not the way I mean."
"The way you mean. I've never said that to any woman before. But you're not like any woman before. And—I'm a different man."
"Strange—so strange. Conan, and yet not Conan."
"I could love you, Beudag—if I lived."
Harpstrings gave a thrumming sigh in the darkness, the faintest whisper of sound. Beudag started, sighed, and rose from the fur rug. In a minute she had found flint and steel and got the candle lighted. Romna the bard stood in the curtained doorway, watching them.
Presently he said, "You're going to let him go."
Beudag said, "Yes."
Romna nodded. He did not seem surprised. He walked across the dais, laying his harp on the table, and went into another room. He came back almost at once with a hacksaw.
"Bend your neck," he said to Starke.